A Boy's Best Friend
by Anybodys
Summary: A collection of tales following Norman Bates from prepubescence to that fateful day Marion Crane arrived. Apologies to the Psycho sequels for completely disregarding them for everything but the name "Chet", but I'd like to explore it on my own. Major TW for abuse in general. Rated T for sexual content,
1. Chapter 1

The first time Norman Bates ever saw a woman naked, completely free of any sort of restrictive clothing, he was no more than twelve years old. It was the age where the boys at the schoolhouse, although always sneering, always bullheaded, decided they couldn't let any male peer get behind, no matter how queer, and by doing so, effectively wrapped him into the realms of adulthood.

He was gangly, around five foot five by then, hair always escaping the nice form his mother sculpted for him. The large, awkward hands of his came to his face as he saw the pictures - girls with plump thighs and snowy breasts, lips crimson and eye sultry, stroking, teasing, water cascading down around them from the comforts of their home or from somewhere else exotic. All of them seemed to be piercing his gaze with their own, each one edging him on to some challenge he couldn't decipher. His face became uncomfortably warm.

"C'mon Norman, stop being a puss."

I'm not, he attempted to choke out, but his words were blocked by that constant fear that his mother was always watching.

"Put it away," he murmured.

"What?"

Cheeks burning, mind reeling, he slinked off.

"He's nuttin' but a mama's boy!"

Definitely not the worst thing they ever called him, but he grimaced and went back inside the building. Recess was terrible anyway.

Norman walked home everyday after school, scuffing his feet against the dusty roads, creating clouds that couldn't withstand the wind. They clung to his pants, the one of two pairs he always wore. He always received flack for it, but it was mesmerizing to watch. It was a lengthy walk, but one he enjoyed nonetheless, abruptly ended by the voice of his mother and the rustling of his jacket being hung next to the entrance. Rarely she'd ask him anything; sometimes she'd be scolding him for something; often she'd stay quiet until supper was ready.

His fingers ran across the keys of the piano in their sitting room. It held itself with a proud posture that he knew only came with age, and as it still dropped in certain areas, it was easy to guess its antiquity. Gently his fingertips pressed onto the whites and the blacks, picking out a silly song the children at school adored singing, and then another about stars and animals, until the shrill tone of his mother rolled through the room.

"Norman! Dinner!"

He stuffed his hands into his pocket and made his way to the kitchen. "Quit slouching," she said as he stopped in the doorway. "It's bad for you."

His shoulders flexed back, and then he made his way to the seat he always sat in: a rickety, oak chair that squeaked when he put his weight on it. A plate of food was set in front of him. It wasn't until halfway through the meal did he glance at the refrigerator, or make an attempt at speaking with his mother, who had been talking somewhat to herself since they began eating.

"The boys at school brought dirty pictures," he said quietly.

Her posture stiffened. "And?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, the boys brought dirty pictures."

"Did they get caught?"

"No."

"How'd you know about them? Did you look at them?"

"No."

"Then how'd you know?"

"I could hear them talking."

She stuck her fork into the beans on her plate. It wasn't angry, like it could have been, but not gentle, like it very rarely ever was, and she folded her hands beneath her chin and searched him with her eyes, scanning for any deceit in his words.

"Don't be looking at naked women, Norman. They're ghastly."

"I won't, Mother."

She leaned back in her chair and resumed eating again. Norman flexed his fingers and waited for her to finish.

* * *

He knew by now how humans worked. Although he hadn't performed any dances of seduction and passionate romance, the general understanding was there. Those bare ladies were supposed to excite men, arouse them in an unholy way. Thinking back on them now he only felt slightly flustered, and even more intrigued.

It was 8:30, and his mother was preparing for bed. She never took her baths in the morning - something about the air, he never could grasp onto her reasoning - and she sat in the bathroom by herself, ignoring his trudging steps around the door. The thought occurred to him that his mother was now as exposed as the women he had seen earlier.

He hesitated near the door of the bathroom, checking that any sort of camera was absent, because after all, she could have been one of them. Although it had been a decade since the photo on the wall near the kitchen was taken, it was a lie to say she wasn't handsome at one point of her life. She'd changed ever since her husband died, but finding a widow who hadn't was a nearly impossible search.

His nose twitched. Why, his father - his father had seen her without any clothing on. His knuckles flexed. She had let him see her, and it was okay since they were acknowledged as a valid couple with no sort of moral consequences pursuing them, but the thought-

Sprawling fingers grasped the handle of the door. He jumped a moment later as her voice called to him.

"Norman? Norman, is that you?"

"Yes, Mother," he only murmured, and slumped away to his room, as he wasn't in the mood for another lecture. Not today, at least.


	2. Chapter 2

When his mother wasn't watching, he'd travel to the road that ran by their house, and if he was feeling particularly daring, he'd lay his chest in the dirt and watch car tires go whizzing by. The street was mostly vacant, only a couple of vehicles here and there making an appearance, but he closely watched them pass and wipe his eyes when they were gone. For hours he was able to do this, playing with strands of withering grass and smashing his thumb down on any ant that passed by. Sometimes he would snicker deviously as he flipped beetles over, watching their legs scramble to find some sort of surface, but before they could be slam down his palm.

"What's on your palm?" his mother asked him one day when he had done this routine in a white shirt. She was peeved enough that the moon fabric was stained with clumps of a dull, tan color.

"I smushed seven beetles and fifteen ants."

"You nasty little boy," she told him, but it was almost light-hearted for her. She made a plate of sandwiches for him that afternoon, which he eagerly consumed after he washed his hands and took a scolding from his mother about his shirt.

"Lordy, you look more like your father everyday," she said. He could never tell how she felt about his father, since she never talked about him and when she did, there was always a faint hint of disgust in the edges of her faces but a faint light of adoration tucked somewhere in her eyes. It wasn't as if he'd ever been good at reading people anyway.

"Come here, boy," she commanded, and he scurried over to her. She ruffled his hair, complaining about the wind always ruining it, and then ran her finger down his cheeks to remove any streaks of dust still there. "There, that's acceptable," she said, and he knew that was her way of saying, "I love you." Or at least that was how he had interpreted it, since he never really heard those words ever verbalized, but as he crossed up the stairs, he acknowledged that he had a habit of always saying it back.

* * *

"Norman!"

He sprinted inside the house, cheeks flushed as he slightly panted, eyes glimmering as he stopped in front if the kitchen window. "Yes, Mother?"

"What are you doing outside?"

"Mrs. Knolls' cat somehow ended up in our yard, so I was petting-"

"Don't do that, it's probably diseased."

His smile wavered. "Okay."

"Come inside now, we have a guest coming over."

His eyebrows furrowed at the news. She hated having any sort of company, and wouldn't even let him talk to anyone himself because of her aversion to people, but he never minded it much. Mother was all he needed. "A boy's best friend is his mother," she told him day after day when he used to question why he couldn't talk to the other boys and girls when they all had best friends. Ever since then his alienation didn't seem so different anymore.

"Who's coming over?"

"Never mind that, get yourself cleaned up."

He followed her orders and went upstairs, combing his hair and washing off his hands and face, before bouncing back down the steps and meeting his mother in the kitchen. "He'll be here anytime, so sit down and be good."

"Yes, Mother."

Norman shoved his hands into his pockets and sat down in a large mahogany chair that had rarely been used since the death of his father. He slumped down, watching the hands on the clock, quickly following his mother's orders for correct posture but then relaxing again a minute later. The period of waiting that followed was an agitated one, unending and uneventful, much like the rest of Norman's experiences, only now he wasn't allowed to run and jump like he otherwise would of. Instead, he flexed his fingers and watched the bones of his hand flex underneath his skin. Teal veals weaved their around his arm, much like rivers flowing to a sea they couldn't quite fine. An inkling of curiosity plagued him as he wondered what it would be like to cut one open.

There was a knock, followed by the door creaking open. Norman quickly leaped to his feet and brushed off the front of his shirt. A man's voice murmured something to his mother, causing him to shift uncomfortably on his feet. He barely could remember a time when he could hear someone else that wasn't his mother. His face was fuzzy, his posture half-forgotten, almost as if he had dreamed of his man a decade before, but there still was something uneasy about this other man being here. It wasn't his father, and even then, his father was hardly a welcomed memory.

"Norman, this is Chet."

Norman only blinked at him.

"I've been seeing him for a while, and now it's your turn to meet him."

He hated him already, like a sudden spark that set a untamed flame running. His back tensed, arms becoming lead bricks at his side, unwilling to greet this man. How long had he been with his mother for?

The walls seemed to close in, and that man was in such an unacceptable proximity. The pure rage that seethed inside the lowest pit of his stomach was enough to keep him from opening his mouth at all and ignore the glares he got from his mother when he didn't answer Chet's questions.

"Don't mind him, he's always been odd," his mother told their guest, but Norman only clenched his fists around his utensils tighter, glaring between the table and the two adults present. His jaw was locked, heart pounding, and he knew he was being unreasonable, he knew it could be nothing, but she betrayed him.

"May I be excused?"

"No."

"Thank you," he mumbled, and he got to his feet. He occasionally disobeyed his mother, even though he was always reprimanded for it.

"Norman!"

The kitchen door slammed behind him, and he shuffled across the ground, through the quiet air and past the scattered trees. Maybe he could give him a chance, if his mother wanted him too, but it would be challenging. Not when she was his only friend.

That gray cat was there again, meowing as Norman neared him, staring at him with sienna eyes and nuzzling against his legs. He blinked down at it. The cat had veins, the same sort of thing he observed earlier, and if he could find the right tool, he could try and split them, see what would happen to this animal blissfully unaware to cruel intentions of anyone else-

He stopped himself. Not with that cat. Not here, not now, not with him. A bird flew overhead, chirping something chipper, and Norman became aware again of where he was and what he was doing. The veins were still there.

* * *

"You can't _do _that, Norman! You embarrassed me and looked like a fool!"

There was another bird, the same breed as earlier, swooping near the window, cooing a soothing song. His eyes followed it, back and forth, up and down, around and around, until -

"_Norman!_"

Her hand impacted with the back of his head, jolting him back to the reality he ever half-paid attention to.

"You listen to be, you ungrateful freak, if you ever run out on me again-"

His gaze shifted back to the window.

"-I'm going to make sure your sorry soul regrets ever ignoring me-"

It was still there. His heart fluttered a bit at the thought of holding one in between his hands.

"-_do you understand?_"

"Yes, Mother."

She grunted, eyes partially shut in suspicion, but adjusted her dress and backed away. "Go get ready for bed."

"Okay, Mother."

He made a goal to catch that bird sooner or later.


	3. Chapter 3

One time when his mother actually took him outside the house, they ended inside a room, where she talked heatedly with another man, irritation riddled in both of their voices. Norman had no other choice but to glance around, and his eyes continuously came back to the stuffed birds hanging from the ceiling. "How do you do that?" he asked without realizing he was interrupting the conversation his mother was having.

"Do what?" the man responded.

"The birds."

"It's taxidermy, boy."

It captivated him enough that he decided to learn how to do just that. There was a rather elegant look to them, as if they were just as carefree in death as they were life. They weren't frightening like other animals; they were just birds.

His mother never attempted to stop him, because learning about taxidermy kept Norman from laying in the dirt or throwing rocks at trees and the sides of the house, and although she often called him queer for it, he did it anyway. It was no different from the other things she called him.

The man his mother was now seeing kept coming back, and everytime he returned Norman could feel something uncomfortable tightening in the pit of his stomach, so he retreated outside, where the birds continued swooping and all was quiet. Cars zoomed past, and he watched them in silence before following the flight of the birds again until it got so dark his eyes strained to see the creatures that were no longer there.

"Why are you so obsessed with those birds?" his mother asked him one day.

"I like watching them fly."

"You strange little boy," his mother clicked. She wagged her head at him. "You peculiar little boy, why can't you do something normal?"

"Other boys look a-at women." He cleared his throat as she shook her head harder.

"No, Norman, they might do that, but they also don't chase after birds as if they had nothing better to do."

_I don't_, he was about to say, but his mother would smack him for indirectly insulting her ability to entertain him, especially not when there was so much he could do around the house. The next day he took to cleaning the windows. His bird was still there.

When that man came back, Norman took to nestling himself into the chair in front of his fireplace and opening a large book, all about stuffing things, and tried his best to block out the sounds of their voices. Normally his mother wasn't so talkative, and now she seemed almost _smitten _at moments, and a strange pounding in his ears would occur when he noticed it, until he was shaking. It wouldn't stop until the man left, and finally, he'd relax when his mother flipped around and shooed him up the stairs for being a bore again.

"He doesn't like you very much," she told him one night.

"I don't like him very much."

"Excuse me?"

He was accustomed to his mother's slaps by now. It barely made him blink.

* * *

"What are you reading, Norman?"

The boys were back, and it did no good trying to avoid their questions anymore.

"Taxidermy."

"Taxidermy? Tommy, isn't that what your dad does?"

"Yeah. Why are you reading about taxidermy? Are you a hunter or something?"

Norman shook his head.

"Then why are you reading about taxidermy?"

"I think it's interesting," Norman answered.

"But why?"

"I don't know," he said softly, "I would like to stuff birds."

"But you don't hunt?"

"No."

One of the boys laughed. "It's just Norman being weird again guys, nothing interesting here."

Norman shuffled home with this books in his arms, the one on taxidermy right on top, and he sprinted across the street when there were no cars coming, until at last, he was home. His mother was waiting there for him in the kitchen.

"Come here, Norman."

He went over to her.

"I'm building a motel."

Norman blinked at her. "What?"

"I'm building a motel."

"Why?"

"Chet said I should."

There was that tension in his chest again, warming his body and making his fingertips and feet tingle.

"With what?"

"Your father's money."

She was using his father's money for another man's plans? It hardly seemed right, _he _was supposed to be the only man in his mother's life, even if he wasn't fully grown yet, but she had gone and found another anyway. He licked his lips.

"Why do you want to do that?"

"Why are you in any position to question me?" Her voice raised. "Who's the parent? You're always so disrespectful!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he mumbled, dropping his eyes to the ground. His fingers clenched around his taxidermy book.

Of course he was over that night, after she hassled Norman to groom himself more, and she pushed him into a chair for dinner and ignored any attempts to discuss the matters of the motel. "He loves it," she told this man Norman despised, and Norman bitterly stabbed his fork into a Brussel sprout, for which she scolded him for. When he was done, he ran outside again, although it was getting dark, and the wind nipped harshly at his ears, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything except what his mother was doing, without his permission, without his agreement, that she cared more about another man than her own son.

The bird was there again, even though it was so late, and he knew it was time. Without thinking, he grabbed a rock nearby, picked it up, and threw it. And then it was another, and another, until the rocks were smashing into something he had lusted after for weeks, until it was as motionless as those animals suspended from wire in that building, until his chest was heaving and the fog in his mind slowly rolled away.

"_Norman!_"

He stepped away from the bird. It was dead.

"What the hell did you do?"

"I… I only wanted to stuff it…"


	4. Chapter 4

The pictures the boys studied inside their school books were getting raunchier. Norman's ears would get warm as they nudged each other and displayed their treasure.

"Norman's a pussy," they'd laugh. He hid behind his taxidermy book.

His mother was distracted more and more by the man she was seeing, especially since construction of the motel had started. She stopped caring what he did, or at least, didn't care as much. On good days, she'd let him have some money, and he's run down to a drug store and then to another and another, trying to find the chemicals his book described.

"What're you up to, Norman?" one clerk asked one day.

"Taxidermy."

"Taxidermy? Bit queer, don't you think?"

"I like it." He paid for his things and left without saying anything else.

All he needed was a bird now, but he was rather unsure where to get one. The boys at school, although approaching the age where some just dropped out altogether, frequently went hunting. When they weren't chanting their normal taunts, he approached them.

"I hear you're building a motel," one said as he neared them with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Yeah, but that's not what I really want to-"

"What do you want then?"

He licked his lips. "A bird. A dead bird I mean, one t-to stuff."

The other boy blinked. "A dead bird?"

"Just one. That's all, just one. You shoot birds, don't you?"

"I do, but..." He narrowed his eyelids. "Why should I give you one?"

"I... don't know."

He jabbed his tongue into the side of his cheek. "You're rich, right?"

"I don't consider myself-"

"But you got enough money to build a motel." The boy glanced at his friend. "Tell you what, you give me ten dollars, and I'll get you a bird."

Norman's eyes widened. "Ten?"

"Take it or leave it."

After a few seconds of tense silence, he sighed. "Fine." He left the boys there.

* * *

There was a box in his mother's room, ornately decorated as the rest of her area was, with silver hands so intricate sculpted that they seemed almost lifelike at times. Her fingers, still soft even after all these years, would rest upon it, her hand crouched like a dog about to attack, and no matter how many times he asked, she'd never tell him what was inside.

When she was reading in the sitting room one day, Norman saw it was his time to dart up the stairs and into her room. He was touching the Ark of the Covenant, hesitant as he reached out for it, knowing he could suffer instant chastisement for even daring to touch it, but after a decade passed of his feet being planted firmly against the floor and no disturbance from his mother, he knew he could grab it.

Out of the many things that could have been stored there, and the few it was supposed to hold, Norman only found two: a string of pearls that hadn't seen the light of day for the entirety of his life, and a pile of money.

Quickly he fled the scene, hurrying down the steps to distance himself from what from he had committed, until his mother cleared her throat and he stopped on the bottom stair.

"What's the hurry, Norman?"

"Nothing, Mother."

"What were you doing?"

"Looking through my bookshelf." His jaw twitched in the way he did when he was fibbing, and his mother knew it as well as he did. She slapped him.

"Don't lie to me, boy," she growled. "I provide this life for you, and you disrespect me like that?"

"I'm sorry, Mother."

"No you're not."

"I'm sorry, Mother, I really am..."

It had been six years since, and although she never quite figured out what he did, it she never made it harder to go in there. He knew exactly where to get ten dollars.

Chet didn't stay too late that night, allowing his mother more time to spoil herself before she went to bed, but less time for Norman to sneak into her room. He waited in the sitting room, daring enough to go over to the piano ("Quiet, Norman! I have a _pounding _headache.") and quietly pecked the keys as he waited for the perfect moment. As she washed the plates in the kitchen, he shut the cover over the piano keys and got to his feet.

"I'm going to my room," he said.

"What for?"

"I want to listen to my records."

He climbed the stairs, one hand gripping the railing, the other in his pocket like always, and soon he found himself in front of her room. Hesitantly his gaze shifted to the landing, hidden from view, but her silhouette was absent. The door swung open, and, like a cat, he entered.

It didn't take him long to go over and take what he needed, and he hurried out again, to his room where he threw a record on. Bach played, the regal sound of the organs covering the sound of his heart hammering, and then masking the creaking of the stairs as his mother climbed them. He left his room as her footsteps stopped.

She wasn't in the hall anymore, nor her bedroom. The only thin strip of light came from the bathroom. Of course, it was time for her daily bath, and Norman creeped closer to the door, only slightly ajar. Water was running, but he was unsure of whether or not she was in there yet. He placed his eye against the crack of the door.

It was like those pictures, Norman realized, as his mother's robe fluttered against the floor. She let her hair cascade down her back after pulling out the pin that held her bun together. He could only see her back, only see how her body curved, and although she wasn't as picturesque as pin-up girls, there was still something enticing. A few moments later, she turned, revealing the side of her body, causing Norman's eyes to widen as his ears pounded. Shaky hands pushed against the wall to keep him steady. He didn't dare look away.

So this is what is was like, away from pictures, away from dirty stories. It became harder to breathe as droplets of water caressed her skin, soap suds providing meager coverage. There was no modesty here. Norman moved away after some time, heart racing as he ran back to his room and slammed the door behind him. Quickly, he unbuttoned his pants, flopped down on his bed, and bit down on his finger to keep from groaning. Relief came soon.


	5. Chapter 5

The birds were captivating, as beautiful in death as they were in life, once Norman had stuffed them. Otherwise, they were limp and lifeless, causing him to feel a slight unease when they lay in his hands, but getting to work and making them appear almost lifelike again was rewarding. He smiled at his work, more pleased with every bird he stuffed, and ignored his mother.

"Quit stuffing those damn birds," she told him, but she'd disappear with her boyfriend and Norman would play a record until he couldn't hear them anymore. His hands took a few minutes to become calm enough to hold a needle and thread. They were the steadiest they ever were when he sewed them shut, but he always had to keep his handiwork to himself. No one appreciated taxidermy much.

One night, his mother vanished again with that man, and he pretended that their sighs were the wind and his vision was shaking because he was just tired, and he wondered if a human would be just as breathtaking as those birds once stuffed, if they could be restored to the same level of divineness they might have owned in life, and his hands itched to try it but there was nothing to try with. He tried to make himself fall asleep. The wind was just too loud.

And he thought about his mother in those lonely nights when she was trapped in between the walls with him but could be found nowhere, and what she was doing and what she had done, and what it felt like to run a hand down her thigh and taste her lips, until his face was red with embarrassment. He was unable to keep himself from enjoying it, and he wondered if it was so sinful after all. They never stopped.

Months had passed, and he grew a few inches more, until now his head was almost past his mother's, and his frame was even more gangly than ever. Even though her lover came around more and more, his aggravation towards him never became any less. Anytime he was over, he'd eat dinner with them, respectfully and diligently (because his mother's threats had always been enough to whip him into shape, if only for a bit), and then he would slink off upstairs, watching them without their knowledge as they moved into the sitting room. Their conversations always turned into heated whispers, and then Norman had to scurry away to his room to avoid being caught, and then the typical cycle of using Beethoven to block out the sound of restless bedsprings started again.

It was no different any night - well, except for the times their heated whispers turned into slamming doors, but he'd come back the next night and the normal routine commenced again - and although Norman was still annoyed, he was accustomed to it. That night he jogged upstairs again, sticking his legs through the bars of the railing and pressing his face to them so he could have a good view of his mother and the other man. To quell any bitter thoughts that came to him, he picked at the dry skin around his fingers, and think about the bird he planned to stuff next, until he was forced to flee to his room and do just that.

Norman was not expecting, however, for the sudden twist in his mother's usual conversation, when Chet nodded his head and told her, "I think I could say I love you."

What a stupid thing to say, Norman thought instantly, and he expected his mother to react the same way, but she melted in his hands again, like the wax Norman used to watch pool in the candle holder on the mantle. Of course, inside and outside of her bedroom that bastard had a hold of her. Norman clutched onto the railing, vision shaking again as he eyed the man maliciously. He retracted his legs a moment later, retreated to his bedroom, and didn't care if she could hear his door slam.

The birds were waiting for him. His fingers were the only thing in command.

* * *

No one had ever attempted calling Norman a people's person, because the matter of fact was that he was not. "He's strange," he heard his mother say in the kitchen one day as he sat out of view. "He's a strange boy. I sometimes wonder if he'll ever need locked up."

"Surely you don't mean that."

"You don't know him well enough. I think he doesn't like you much."

"Norma-"

"Don't worry about him, he's strange."

And Norman sat, nodding his head in small movements, pulling at his fingers until his knuckle popped and he ran away again.

"Was that him?"

There was a pause as Norman made it to the bathroom door.

"I told you, he's strange. Doesn't like people very much."

He turned the shower head on and looked up into it, flinching when a few drops of water hit the side of his face. There came a few hard knocks on the door a minute later.

"Norman, what are you doing in there?"

"Showering."

"Why are you showering right now?"

It was the only piece of total privacy he had from his mother. If he retreated to his room, she could always come in, and in the days before she had that boyfriend, she could run her fingers up the inside of his thigh while her other hand caressed his cheek.

She loved him, he just knew she loved him. Ever since that man came into the picture, she stopped showing that she loved him.

He doused his hair, and her words drowned in the roar of water. Strange, he was strange. He always knew that; she always said he was, and so did the boys at school, and so did his teachers. He was odd, an outsider to the rest of society. The shower head turned off, he dried his hair, and when he left the bathroom, his mother was down with her boyfriend again, where their talking of what color the cabins should be became silent. The familiar sound of smacking lips replaced the word "yellow."


	6. Chapter 6

_A brief interlude._

Norma Bates was not always hard-hearted and cruel, and the last person to ever say she was those things was, of course, her son. She was a reflection on events that happened and a world that did not always agree, and Norman loved her very, very much. There were times when she came to him like an angel, looking ethereal in the light that came in through the parlor window when she read on summer evenings.

When he was younger, Norma took him on picnics, and the wind would ruffle her hair and the sun rays would catch in her eyes, illuminating her face in a magnificent way he could never explain nor never saw in anyone else. Other days, when something went better than she had hoped and sleep began settling in, she played a record and hummed to herself, and when she saw Norman she sang softly to him in a voice he believed belonged in the song. Gently, she'd ruffle his hair and send him off to bed, and all through the night he dreamed of her loveliness in those quiet moments when she didn't have to be harsh in the face of the rest of the world, or in the face of his own incompetence.

In the mornings she had her regular schedule to get ready. It had become considerably simpler ever since she was widowed, but even then, it didn't stop her from shooing him away since she was indecent, but any frustration then would resolve by night when maybe she would kiss his forehead, or more likely scold him playfully.

Age hardened her. His own faults hardened her. It wasn't her own character, Norman decided, it was everyone else's. She was too wonderful to him some days to be bad.

Norman's mother was breathtakingly beautiful, and, most importantly, he was his and only his.


End file.
